f Kings. [An ingenious young Friend of
mine, connected with Legationary Business, found lately, at the Hague, a
consecutive Series, complete for four or five years (I think, from 1780
onwards), of Friedrich's LETTERS to his MINISTER IN LONDON,--Copies
punctually filched as they went through the Post-office
there:--specimens of which I saw; and the whole of which I might have
seen, had it been worth the effort necessary. But Friedrich's London
Minister, in this case, was a person of no significance or intimacy; and
the King's Letters, though strangely exact, clear and even elucidative
on English Court-Politics and vicissitudes, seemed to be nearly barren
as to Prussian.] Hitherto, with one exception to be mentioned presently,
his main business seems to have been that of introducing, on different
Court-Days, a great number of Travelling English, who want to see the
King, and whom the King little wants, but quietly submits to. Incoherent
Sherlock, whom we discover to have been of the number, has, in his
tawdry disjointed Book, this Passage:--

"The last time of my seeing him [this Hero-King of my heart] was at
Berlin [not a hint of the time when]. He came thither to receive the
adieus of the Baron de Swieten, Minister from their Imperial Majesties
[thank you; that means 8th October, 1777 [Rodenbeck, iii. 172.]], and
to give audience to the new Minister, the Count Cobenzl. The Foreign
Ministers, the persons who were to be presented [we, for instance], and
the Military, were all that were at Court. We were ten English [thirteen
by tale]: the King spoke to the first and the last; not on account of
their situation, but because their names struck him. The first was Major
Dalrymple. To him the King said: 'You have been presented to me before?'
'I ask your Majesty's pardon; it was my Uncle' (Lord Dalrymple, of
whom presently). Mr. Pitt [unknown to me which Pitt, subsequent Lord
Camelford or another] was the last. THE KING: 'Are you a relation of
Lord Chatham's?' 'Yes, Sire.'--'He is a man whom I highly esteem' [read
"esteemed"].

"He then went to the Foreign Ministers; and talked more to Prince
Dolgorucki, the Russian Ambassador, than to any other. In the midst of
his conversation with this Prince, he turned abruptly to Mr. Elliot, the
English Minister, and asked: 'What is the Duchess of Kingston's family
name?' This transition was less Pindaric than it appears; he had just
been speaking of the Court of Petersburg, and that Lady